Commentary: Message to Occupy Monsanto: Occupy yourself

I normally wouldn’t pay much attention to the group named Occupy Monsanto who is expected to protest against genetically modified foods and modern agriculture this weekend. They have a bone to pick with Monsanto and I imagine you’re going to see them on the 6 o’clock news Saturday evening.

I’ve tried to be kinder and gentler over the past year in my approach in dealing with those whom I disagree but I can’t in this case. Occupy Monsanto is a bunch of experts in pseudo-science who mine the Internet to support their misguided cause of getting biotechnology out of our food system. And of course, if it’s on the internet, it must be true.

There, I said it. And I feel much better.

What you’re going to hear this weekend is a lot of wailing about how Monsanto is poisoning our food supply and raping our earth by supplying genetically modified seed while under the protection of a host of government bureaucrats who are in their pocket.

This invective, spewed out of one side of the mouths of well-fed activists who are probably popping a biotech-derived pill in the other to stay healthy, is largely based on a philosophy that “big anything” is bad and an ignorance of real world problems like feeding a rapidly growing world population that now numbers 7 billion.

What you won’t hear this weekend is that more than 600 scientific studies support the safety of genetically engineered foods and that the National Academies of Science, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association—among others—have concluded that genetically engineered foods do not pose any more risk to people than other foods.

You won’t hear that agricultural biotechnology products are looked at with more scrutiny by the government review process than any other products in the history of agriculture.

You won’t hear the benefits of genetically engineered crops including a decline in the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, an increase in natural resource conservation and the ability to produce more foods for a growing population in a sustainable manner.

Monsanto is a leader in agriculture biotechnology and is a company like so many others in America—trying to make a profit by producing products that make life better.

I’m all for consumer choice but I would like to see decisions made based on science and not on fear, rumors and innuendo.

Occupy Monsanto specializes in all three. They would be much better served if they’d go Occupy Themselves by growing their own food.